CASE INCIDENT A Virtual Team at T.A.

Stearns
T.A. Stearns is a national tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation
services for individuals. Stearns superior reputation is based on the high quality of its advice
and the excellence of its service. Key to the achievement of its reputation is the state-o theart computer databases and analysis tools that its people use when counseling clients. These
programs were developed by highly trained individuals.
The programs that these individuals produce are highly technical, both in terms of the
tax laws they cover and the code in which they are written. Perfecting them requires high
levels of programming skill as well as the ability to understand the law. New laws and
interpretations of existing laws have to be integrated quickly and flawlessly into the existing
regulations and analysis tools.
Four programmers in the greater Boston area carry out the creation of these programs
in a virtual environment. The four work at home and are connected to each other and to the
company by email, telephone, and conference software. Formal, onsite meetings among all
of the programmers take place only a few times a year, although the workers sometimes meet
informally outside of these scheduled occasions. Here is some background on the four:
Tom Andrews is a tax lawyer, a graduate of the University of Maine and a former
hockey player there. At 35, Tom has worked on the programs for six years and is the
longest-standing member of the team. Along with his design responsibilities, Tom is
the primary liaison with Stearns. He is also responsible for training new team
members. Single, Tom works out of his farm in Southern New Hampshire where, in
his spare time, he enjoys hunting and fishing.
Cy Crane, a tax accountant and computer science graduate of the University of
Massachusetts, is 32 years old, married, with two children ages four and six. His wife
works full time in a law firm in downtown Boston. In his spare time, Cy enjoys
biking and fishing.
Marge Dector, a tax lawyer, graduated from Penn State University, is 38 years old,
married, with two children ages eight and ten. Her husband works full time as an
electrical engineer at a local defense contractor. Marges hobbies include golf and
skiing.
Megan Harris, tax accountant and graduate of Indiana University, is 26 years old and
single. She recently relocated to Boston and works out of her apartment in the Back
Bay area.
These four people exchange e-mail messages many times every day. In fact, it is not
unusual for them to step away from guests or family to log on and check in with the others.
Often their e-mails are amusing as well as work-related. Sometimes, for instance, when they
were facing a deadline and one of Marges kids is home sick, they help each other with the
work. Tom has occasionally invited the others to visit his farm, and Marge and Cy have
gotten their families together several times for dinner. About once a month the whole group
gets together for lunch.
All four of these Stearns employees are on salary, which, consistent with company
custom, is negotiated separately and secretly with management. Although each is required to
check in regularly during every workday, they were told when they were hired they could
work wherever they wanted. Clearly, flexibility is one of the pluses of these jobs. When the
four get together, they often joke about the managers and workers who are tied to the office,
referring to them as face timers and to themselves as free agents.
When the programmers were asked to make a major program change, they often
developed programming tools called macros that would help them to do their work more
efficiently. These macros greatly enhanced the speed at which a change could be written into

the programs. Cy, in particular, really enjoyed hacking around with macros. On one recent
project, for instance, he became obsessed with the prospect of creating a shortcut that could
save him a huge amount of time. One week after he turned in his code and his release notes
to the company, Cy bragged to Tom that he created a new macro that had saved him eight
hours of work that week. Tom was skeptical of the shortcut, but after trying it out, he found
that it actually saved him many hours too.
Stearns has an employee suggestion program that rewards employees for innovations
that save the company money. The program gives an employee five percent of the savings
generated by their innovation over a period of three months. The company also has a profit
sharing plan. Tom and Cy felt that the small amount of money that would be generated by a
company reward would not offset the free time that they gained using their new macro. They
wanted the time for leisure or consulting work. They also feared their group might suffer if
management learned about the innovation. It would allow three people to do the work of
four, which could mean one might lose their job, so they did not share their innovative macro
with management.
Although Tom and Cy would not share the innovation with management, they were
concerned that they were entering their busy season and knew everyone on the team would
be stressed by the heavy workload. They decided to distribute the macro to the other
members of their team and swore them to secrecy.
Over lunch one day, the team set for itself a level of production that it felt would not
arouse managements suspicion. Several months passed and they used some of their extra
time to push the quality of their work even higher. But they also now had more time to
pursue their own personal interests.
Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work team, picked up on the innovation
several weeks after it was first implemented. He had wondered why production time had
gone down a bit, while quality had shot up, and he got his first inkling of an answer when he
saw an e-mail from Marge to Cy thanking him for saving her so much time with his brilliant
mind. Not wanting to embarrass his group of employees, the manager hinted to Tom that he
wanted to know what was happening, but he got nowhere. He did not tell his own manager
about his suspicions, reasoning that since both quality and productivity were up he did not
really need to pursue the matter further.
Dave has just learned that Cy has boasted about his trick to a member of another
virtual work team in the company. Suddenly, the situation seems to have gotten out of
control. Dave decided to take Cy to lunch. During the meal, Dave asked Cy to explain what
was happening. Cy told him about the innovation, but he insisted the teams actions had been
justified to protect itself.
Dave knew that his own boss would soon hear of the situation and that he would be
looking for answersfrom him.

A Virtual Team at T.A.Stearns

Question 1
Why is this group a team?
Answer 1
This group can be easily seen as a team in which there is a formal group of four people who
have pre-defined roles to perform. The group members here are part of a virtual team which
means they can operate from anywhere they wish to, that is , they just have to check once a
day through e-mails, messages and group conferencing softwares .
Here are the reasons why this group is a team :
1. The team has shared leadership roles.
All the four members of the team have full independence to work from anywhere
and has a say in the decisions made by the team.
2. Team has individual and mutual accountability
3. The team has specific purpose
The soul goal of this team is to prepare highly technical both in terms of the tax laws
they cover and the code in which they are written.
4. The team has a collective work products
They have a team which works together to solve big problems through programming
such as building complex macros for the company.
5. The team encourages open-ended, active problem solving meetings
They talk to each other daily via mails and messages and group conferencing
softwares.
6. The team measures performance by assessing collective work products
7. The team discusses, decides and does real work
They openly discuss with each other the problems and make decisions there by
leading to programming new programmes for the firms.
Here the team goes beyond the traditional formal work groups by having a
collective, synergistic (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) effect.

Question 3
What, if, any, characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team?
Answer 3
Following is a brief look at the situation T.A.Stearns is a national tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation services
for individuals. It has a superior reputation due to its quality of advice and the excellence of
service. The key is the state-of-the-art computer databases and analysis tools used when
counselling clients which are developed by highly trained individuals. The creation of the
programs is done in a virtual environment by teams. Here four programmers named Tom
Andrews, Cy Crane, Marge Dector, and Megan Harris work at home and are connected to
each other and the company by email, telephone and conference software. The team is
virtual in nature and formal and they can work wherever they want but have to check in
daily, onsite meetings among programmers take place only few times in a year, though they
meet informally outside of these scheduled occasions. The team exchanges emails many
times a day and often they are amusing as well as well work-related. Also once about a month
the whole group gets together.
Now lets have a brief look at how the problem arose due to groupthink Programmers develop programming tools called macro that helps them to do their work
more efficiently when a major program change is required due to changes/amendments in
laws. Cy became obsessed with the prospect of creating a shortcut that could save huge
amount of time and he was successful in doing so. He told Tom about it who tried it and
found it clicked.
Stearns has an employee suggestion program rewarding employees for innovations saving
company money. It gives an employee five percent of savings generated over a period of
three months and a profit-sharing plan. The members of team wanted a time for leisure and
consulting work and feared their group might suffer if the management learned about
their innovation. This way the work of four people could be done by three and one could lose
the job, so they kept it to themselves. Now as the busy season came they distributed the
macro to other members of the team and swore them to secrecy. They set a level of
production that would not arouse the managements suspicion. For several months this
continued and they pushed to more quality work with more leisure time.
However, Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work team, picked up the innovation
several weeks after it was first implemented. He found out that the production time had gone
down a bit, while quality had shot up. He found proofs to his doubt in emails of Marge to Cy.
He hinted it to Tom but he would not tell the truth. Finally things began to go out of control as
Cy boasted his trick to a member of another virtual team and Dave took

Cy out to a lunch. At the lunch Cy revealed about the innovation and that the teams action
had been justified to protect itself.
Groupthink A dysfunction of highly cohesive groups and teams that has received a lot of attention has
been referred to as groupthink. In groupthink there is a deterioration of mental efficiency,
reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressure. It results from the
pressures on individual members to conform and reach consensus that there is no realistic
appraisal of alternative courses of action in a decision, and deviant, minority, or unpopoular
views are suppressed.
Following are the characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team
There is the illusion of invulnerability There is excessive optimism and risk taking. As
we can see here there is excessive optimism and risk taking behaviour shown by the team
as they kept the innovation to themselves having optimism regarding that the management
wont easily find out about it. Also the risk taking behaviour can be seen when they ignore
the company policy for their own benefits.
There are rationalisations by the members of the group to discount warnings.
This can be seen when the members ignore the threat of being caught and whwn Dave
hinted Tom he rationalised thinking if everythings all right why does dave has to worry.
There is an unquestioned belief in the groups inherent morality The group ignores
questionable ethical or moral issues or stances. Here the group ignores the moral issues and
stances by keeping the innovation to themselves knowing about the company policy of
suggested rewards. Working for Stearns for a long time they should have been more loyal.
Those who oppose the group are stereotyped as evil, weak or stupid. Here not a
singleperson in any team leaked the secret of the macro to the management, though, it is
hard to believe that no one had any morality or loyalty for Stearns.
There is direct pressure on any member who questions the stereotypes. Similar to above no
one questioned Cy and Tom for being immoral and their unrealistic approach.
There is self-censorship of any deviation from the apparent group consensus. This can be
easily seen in this case as no one person came out with the truth unless it was finally out.
There is the illusion of unanimity silence is interpreted as consent. Here Cy and Tom
swore the other members to the oath of secrecy thinking what they thought was
everybodys thinking but this actually might not have been the case.

There are self-appointed mind guards who protect the group from adverse information. In
this case study Tom was the self-appointed mind guard who kept the information of Dave
hinting to him about the innovation to himself thinking that there would be nothing done as
long as the work was done well and company was in profit.
Question 4
Has Dave been an effective team leader? Explain your position.
Answer
Yes, Dave is an effective team leader according to my interpretation because he knows how
to converse with employees in different situations without offending them in any way.
In this case when Cy developed a program using his superior programming skills to reduce
his man- hours and increase productivity, he told about it only to his colleagues so that they
benefit from it and enjoy some leisure time. He didnt tell about it to Dave(his boss) because
he feared that since his program helps in doing the work of four people by only three people,
one of them might lose their job because of him. Another reason contributing to his secrecy
was that their team would get only 5% of the profit generated by the aid of their innovation
only for three months which was very less in comparison to the leisure time they had. The
group even increased the quality of their work so as to not arouse any suspicion. But Cy
made the terrible mistake of telling about his program to a member from another group which
aroused Daves suspicions.
Dave was wondering for a few weeks after the implementation of the program as to why
the production time had decreased and the quality of work had shot up. He got his first
inkling form an e-mail he intercepted from Marge (another member of the team) to Cy
thanking him for his brilliant thinking.
Dave tried to confront Tom (group member) trying not to create an embarrassing situation
but got no further leads. He did not even tell his boss about his suspicions since quality and
productivity were up.
But one day Dave learned that Cy had boasted about his trick program to a person from
another team in the company. Dave decided that the matter had gone out of hands and pulled
the reins by inviting Cy to lunch and asking him to explain what was happening.

This method was wise and effective as it gave a sense of security to the offender who
pleaded guilty immediately but insisted that the reasons were justified so as to protect
himself.
This manner of interrogation and his good use of intellect to cover an embarrassing situation
shows that he is an effective team leader. Also he respects the sentiments and

feelings of others which makes him a considerate man leading to his effective team
leadership.